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AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETT. 



A [) D R ESS E S 



DELIVKRED AT ITS LATK 



Jh.l^T^TJJk.lLj lM::E3JiS'"JL'"H>5rC3^, 



IW 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 



JOHN H. B. LATllOBE, Esq., 

AND 

Rer. PHINEHAS D. GURI.EY, D, D. 



NEW YOEK. 
T. K. DA-^VIjEY, T'rinter, 13i& IG Parle lit) w. 

1864 



>rM 



ADDRESS OF JOHN E B. LATEOBE, Esq., 

AlembtTs of the American Colonizatio^n Society, 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I have been unexpectedly requested by the Executive Com- 
mittee to occupy the time, this evening-, which had been allotted 
to one or more speakers, who have failed to attend. I cannot 
do so more profitably than by saying a few words touching the 
condition and prospects of the Colonization cause. 

The question is constantly asked, " What are you doing — how 
many emigrants are you sending to Africa f And the invari- 
able reply is, '• We are doing little or nothing — we are sending 
few if any emigrants ; and yet, never has the success of our 
scheme appeared more certain than at the present time." 

The paucity of emigrants and the smallness of our collectionfl 
are susceptible of easy explanation ; so, too, are the grounds of 
our unhesitating confidence in the future. 

We are engaged in a contest unparalleled in the history of -^ 
the world ; and the prominence which it has given to the sub- 
ject of slavery, and the general belief that it will end in the 
freedom, sooner Or later,, of all who are now held in bondage, 
has led many to suppose that the condition of the negro will be 
eo much modified, when peace shall be established, that the 
separation of the two races, toward which Colonization tends, 
will be no longer necessary ; and that whites and negroes will 
come to be regarded as equals, socially ; or that, at any rate, 
there will be a fair division between tliem of the rewards of in- 
dHstry, if not of place and power. 

That the negro should be credulous at the suggestion of so 
pleasant an illusion, is not unnatural ; and although his past ex- 
perience ought to create doubts, as to the probability of such 
a result, yet, we would be more surprised if he did not wait to 
see the issue of the war, before he made up his mind about Col- 
onization, than we are at his doing so. 

The hesitation of the free negro to emigrate at this time, 
abandoning the vague and dreamy hope of some great, but un- 
defined good that is to befal him when the war is ended, is thus 
readily accounted for ; and until his eyes shall be opened to the 
truth, we can expect but very few emigrants from this quarter. 

While the war, in this way, aflects indirectly the supply of 
emigrants, it has entirely cut us ofi" from our usual supply of 
slaves, emancipated by southern masters, for emigration to Li- 
beria. And here, again, Colonization suflers for the present. 



But the dreams we have above referred to are not couFmed to 
the negro. The whites indulge in them. They lose sight of the 
mighty and paramount question of our Union; and, because the 
collateral one of the negro has been made prominent, they seem 
to imagine that the war will end by overcoming all the preju- 
dices of the whites, annulling the law of races, and iitting the 
new-made free men for that socal equality, which those of their 
race, born free, ediwcated and rehned, have never yet been able 
to attain. They make no attempt to vindicate these views by 
argument. They have a faith but no reason for it : and while 
they wait, in the hope that all they wish for may ' turn up,' they 
suspend their judgment in regard to Colonization. They sus- 
pend their contributions too. And, here again. Colonization 
suffers. 

Verily, if either whites or negroes are right in these antici- 
pations, Colonization is, indeed, functus officio ; and the most 
that we can hope to do is, to maintain a respectable position 
among the missionary associations, difieriug irom them in this 
only, that we have a peculiar held of operations, cultivated by 
us in a peculiar manner. 

But, are they right? We think not. And in demoiistrating 
their error, we will vindicate our belief that the success of our 
scheme was never more assured than now. We have ofteii said 
that African Colonization was destiny. Tin's war will force all 
men to admit it. 

Let us assume, that, sooner or later, immediately, or after 
some comparatively brief interval, every slave in America finds 
himself a freed man when peace shall be restored ; not freed by 
Proclamation merely, but actualh', practically free — free to work 
at pleasure, and for whom he pleases. It requires no stretch 
>of the imagination to do this ; we have only to fancy ourselves 
in the State of Pennsylvania, where there are many free negroes, 
and no slaves. 

What, then, will be the condition of tlic country ? We have, 
now, according to the last census, 482, UU5 free negroes. We 
will then have 4,441,765.* 

Our population, now, is divided into three classes, whites, free 
negroes, and slaves. Then, there will L>e but two classes, whites 
and negroes, both free. 

A mighty change will have been accomplished ; and the ques- 
tion is, how will it affect the social condition of the negro race 
amongst us. Will it reconcile the whites to receive negroes in- 
to their families — into their counting houses — to work with them 
^ in the same factories — to share with them the same out-door 
labor — to live with them under even the humblest roofs ? Will 
it do anything, in a wurd, to obviate the strife j\nd heartburn- 

•The figures of the last ceusus are used iu these rein.irks, although the 
lapse of time is dailj changing them. Still, thej auswer tlie end of the argu- 
ment. 



ings, that have of late years prevailed wherever the races have 
been brong'ht in contact, and which have been regarded as 
making their separation, by means of Colonization, a necessity? 

The subject is too grave to be dealt with by dogmatic asser- 
tions. The happiness and destiny of a people are not to be 
perilled through pride of opinion. We have no justification in 
continuing our scheme, and urging it upon whites and negroes, 
merely because we believe that we are right. Proof is neces- 
sary to justify us; and there is, happily, any amount of it at 
hand. 

In Massachusetts, the free negro population is a little more 
than three-quarters of one per cent, of the aggregate. With a 
population of 1,221,464 whites, she has but 9,602 negroes. And 
no whore have the wrongs of the negro been more emphatically 
discussed than in this State. The press, the pulpit, and the 
platform, have all been eloquent in this behalf And, yet, after 
the war began, and when all t!ie contingencies of the future had 
become prominent, Massachusetts, officially, eschewed the 'in- 
crease of the negro element within her borders. It was thus 
shown, that words were not to be relied on; that it was one 
thing to talk of negro wrongs, and quite another thing to take 
negroes by the hand, and hail them as friends and neighbors. 
And can it for a moment be imagined, that the feeling in Mas- 
Bachuselts, due to less than one per cent, of free negro popu- 
lation, would be modified in favor of the latter, by increasing 
tlie ratio to ten per cent ? It is onl}- necessary to ask the ques- 
tion, to see how ineffably absurd would be the idea of any such 
result. Where there is one hate~or to use a milder word — pre- 
judice, in the one case, there would be ten times as many in the 
other. 

Now, we do not find fault with Massachusetts, when we thus 
put her forward as onr illustration of what must take place 
throughout the land, when the number of free negroes shall be 
ten times greater than it is at present ! Wise and prudent, 
keen of obsarvation, learning fast from experience, her own or 
other people's, with schools everywhere, with thrift everywhere, 
with hospitals and colleges and libraries, and with soldiers, too, 
that do her honor, Massachusetts lias but majiifested a matured 
judgment, formed with all the means of making it a correct one, 
of the inexpediency, looking to the happiness and prosperity of 
her people, of lessening the present great disparity of numbers 
between the wdiites and the negroes within her borders. Mas- 
sachusetts may love the negro race, as she does, if we believe 
her orators and poets ; but it is at a distance that her affection 
is the strongest. 

So far from holding that Massachusetts is to blame in this re- 
spect, we would have her example imitated throughout the land, 
BO far as might be consistent with humanity and the duties that 
we owe to the negro race ; and it is because we firmly believe 



4 6 

that it will be imitated, that we are coloiiizationists. When all 
the States shall feel as Massachusetts feels, a homc'for-the freo 
negro beyond the sea will be all that can save the race from 
extirpation ; and that home we have prepared in Liberia. 

But, while Massachusetts merely protests against the increase 
of her free negro population from abroad, Indiana, another free 
State, proud, wise, intelligent and wealth}', brave, too, as the 
bravest, has gone a step further, and actually taken measures 
to expel the free negro from her confines. 

What will the iuci-oase of the free negroes, at the end of the 
war, or in a comparatively short time afterwards, when all ne- 
groes shall be free, do to modify the feeling or the action of In- 
diana in this regard ? Will it cause the repeal of the unkind 
legislation on her statute book';* Will slaves, just freed across 
the Ohio, in Kentucky, be more welcome in IStio than they were 
in 1856 ? How idle to imagine anything of he kind ! On the 
contrary, unless the war should change humanity, the tendency 
of circumstances wnll be to make the legislation of Indiana 
more severe, rather than more liberal. 

We might go on, and refer to New York, where, witliout law, 
whites are permitted to exclude negroes from certain employ- 
ments — to Pennsylvania, where, in Philadelphia, negroes at one 
time were assailed by mobs — to Ohio, where, in Cincinnati, can- 
non have been brought into the streets to quell a negro riot. 
But why multiply illustrations ? Surely enough has been said 
to show that the mere increase of the numbers of the free ne- 
groes, after the war, will not operate to remove or lessen the 
obstacles which now effectually exclude them from social equal- 
ity wath the whites, and threaten to leave them no alternative 
to extirpation but emigration. 

When the negro race shall be a free race here, wherein will 
they differ from'the Indian race ; and why sliould tiie destiny of 
the one be different from that of the other. Will it be because 
negroes are tillers of the soil, aiid more docile and more amena- 
ble to restraint than the Indians? Why, this very mildness of 
character will operate against them, when the whites, armed 
with political power, increase in numbers to such a degree as 
to produce a strife with negroes for the means of livelhiood. 
Will it be because they are mixed up with us in the same com- 
munities, wfeile the Indians have been pushed beyond our bord- 
ers, and maintained as a separate organization remote from us? 
Why. this very commingling is another elemonl of weakness, 
ahox'ild the anticipated struggle ever arise. Is it because there 
are more educated men among them than are to bo ibund among 
the Indians, with more refinement, more civilization, more reli- 
gion? While the fact here is doubted — for John lu)ss and tlni 
Folsoms. and others, yield to few of any race in information and 
intelligence— yet, even were it conced(id. of what avail will all 
their qualities be wlien tlie question of bread present-s itself, a« 



in time it must, to the masses of the population, with whom the 
negroes will then be intermixed ':* 

On more than one occasion, the speaker lias asked, what 
would have been the fate of the negro, had Ireland, during the 
famine of 1847, been inhabited by a mixed population of whites 
and blacks, in the proportions in which they exist in the United 
States, ai.d entertaining the feelings towards each other there 
that prevail here ? Who can doubt which would have starved ? 
This is a question which will bear repetition. It suggests an illu- 
stration that cannot be overlooked by those who, regardless of 
Kpecious declamation, when the interests of humanity are at 
stake, are not afraid to lace the facts in coming to their conclu- 
sions. 

But, as the cflect of the war, in freeing the slaves, is to ope- 
rate in the States wliere slavery exists, it would not do, in the 
examination we are giving to the subject, to omit these in our 
discourse. To one of 'them, Maryland, the speaker has the 
honor to belong. There are, in Maryland. 83,942 free negroes 
—more than in anv other State of the Union— more than in the 
two great free States of New York and Ohio, put together. 
Nearly one-fiftli of the free negroes of the United States are to 
be found in this state. In Maryland they liave increased to 
more than twelve per cent, of the entire population, by emanci- 
pation, immigration, and births. And in Maryland, with. the 
experience afforded by this large per centage, more has been 
done for colonization than in all the other States combined. And 
vet, in Marvland, notwithstanding the kindness which has at- 
tracted them from other States^ until tiieir numbers have reached 
the ratio above mentioned, they have been gradually and finally 
e:sc]uded from the ship-yards,"^ from the coal-yards, and Iroin 
many an old and accustomed calling. 

Ii^ Maryland the fr e negro population is already so large, 
that doubling it by freeing the slaves will not produce so stri- 
king a change as where— further South, for instance— the pro- 
portion of free negroes is now comparatively small. For years 
past, free n.egroes have formed an important portion of the ag- 
ricultural labor of many counties ; and the experiment of work- 
ing the plantations bv hirelings, instead of slaves, has been more 
than -tried. It has become, in fact, a part of the agricultural 
system of the State. And, without going into the rationale of 
the fact, at this time, it may be remarked that it has been found 
necessary, apparently, to make the violation of a free negro 
contract' for hire, on the part of the laborer, a penal oflenee, 
instead of leaving it to be punished by a civil action at the suit 
of tlie aggrieved party. 

That Maryland will", before long, rank as a free State, cannot 
now be questioned ; but there is nothiug in her history or expe- 
rience to make us hope that the increase of free negroes will 
operate to produce kindlier feelings towards the race than have 
heretofore existed, and which have not sufficed to make Mary- 



t 8 

land an exception to the operation of the law of races, that 
renders the existence of two peoples, which cannot amalgamate 
by intermarriage, in the same land, on a footing of social 
equality, impossible. Amalgamation, extirpation, or emigra- 
tion, would seem to be the only alternatives. 

Going further South with our examination, it is impossible to 
imagine that emancipation of the slaves will improve the feel- 
ings towards them of their late masters. Compulsory, as the 
emancipation will be, in the vast majority of .cases, the angry 
feelings which the measure will produce, will certainly, not j)ro- 
mote relations there between the races, looking in the directipn 
of social equality. Wherever else this condition might obtain, 
•we know enough of the character and temper of the South to 
satisfy us that there, under any circumstances, it must bfe hope- 
less. Generations upon generations would have to elapse, be- 
fore the ignorant uneducated slaves of Carolina and Georgia 
would attain the condition of the free negroes of the North; 
and, during all this time, the pride, the very nature of the 
whites, would be in constant revolt against the very idea of so- 
eial equality. 

We have thns gone over the ground for the purpose of show- 
ing, that the idea that the increase of the free negro population 
of the country, assuming that slavery, sooner or later, is to pass 
awar as the result of the war, will benefit thfe race, elevate the 
negro to the white man's level, or operate, in any one i)articular. 
in his favor, is -an illusion — a vain and idle dream. 

We will now proceed to show, that instead of enhancing the 
negro's prospects of social advancement, the war in which we 
are engaged will impair them ; aj*id. in so doing, make coloniza- 
tion, more than ever, a necessity. 

And this requires a word or two touching (he theory upon 
which colonization rests. It m:ty be stated epigraniatically 
almost, when we say, that coloTiization rests upon the iact that 

WHILK THK I'OFULATION INCKKASKS. THK LAND DOKS NOT. 

We learn little new now-a-days. We are living over and over 
the experience of the past. African coloiizatioii is the same as 
American colonization. The attractions of the new home, the 
repulsions of the old otic, or both cfmibine-i. have produced all 
the colonizations that have taken place -since the days of Noah. 
Where population ha,? been in excess, where religious persecu- 
tion has jnevailed, where distinct races have found it impossi- 
ble to amalgamate, colonization has depended on repulsion ; 
where gold has tempted, where a sj)irit of adventure has needed 
a wider field, attraction has fostered colonization. 

To y)rodnce the great results of African colonization, the re- 
pclfiiig agencies, operating in harmnnv, will be a re<bindant pop- 
ulation, and the distinction b(!tween the white and negro races. 

The speaker has been told i)y high authority, that, excluding 
the vast areas on the majis where arid plains alternate with 
rnouiilains unfit r<'r cultivation, but little laud remains, speak- 



9 

ing comparatively, Uiat has not been taken up ; and the land 

DOES NOT INCRKASK. 

But the population, which was 3,929,827 in 1790, and was 
31,445,089 in i860, will be 100,000,000, in round numbers, at 
the close of the century, and upwards of 20J,0J0,U0U, mucli up- 
wards, in 193'J, only three score years and ten, a single life- 
time, i'rom to-day.* 

Of this teeming-, stirring, jostling- mass, the negroes, all made 
free by the war,.\vill form but an inconsiderable part, even 
thougli they number millions. Deprived of the protection which 
they "enjoyed as slaves, thrown upon their own resources, the 
vas't majority of them hirelings, and nothing but hirelings, they 
will be subjected to a competition which the increase of the ag- 
gregate of population will render inevitable. The competition 
that has heretofore been felt by the free negroes in the great 
cities, only, with the eflects we have referred to, will then be 
felt every where, with none of those alleviations arising from 
the kindly feelings which, in the slave States, have ever existed 
towards the race, feelings which, in the slave State of Maryjand, 
go far to account for the accumulation of its immense free ne- 
gro population. 

We are not speaking of to-day or to-morrow, but of a distant 
period, which is as sure to arrive, however, as is the rising of 
the sun. 

For years, the demand for labor will preserve the freed negro 
from the consequences here indicated. He did not anticipate, 
during the revolutionary war, what he has experienced in New 
York and Indiana within the last twenty years ; but in less 
time than has elapsed since the revolution, will he suffer, if he 
remains here, not in the cities only, but everywhere, what we 
foretell. 

Witiiont the war, this antagonism of races in the South would 
have been long postponed. Even then it would have come at 
last with the increase of population. With peace, and without 
slavery, it will be at once inaugurated. 

One" tiling seems to be conceded in this connection, tliat 
white labor will find its way to the South more rapidly than it 
has yet done, • It will be attracted by the demand for it. The 
Southern climate, the JDroductiveness of the soil, the value of 
its great staples, and the fact there bein^no longer any slaves, 
free white labor cannot be invidiously compared with, or liken- 
ed to, slave labor, will all have their effect in producing this 
result. So long as the owner of lajid was a slave-owner also, 
it was his interest to work his land with the slaves. Ceasing 
to own slaves, and having offered to him a ch.oice between free 
white labor and negro labor, he will be governed by his inter- 
est in choosing between. The whites will th-.is be brought into 



* These calcnlationg, long since made ar.d RPpreciRted by eoloDiaationists, have been oom- 
inunicatwl to Ccngreg* by PrtBuIcnt Liiitoln in onf ol'hig MesSEgfS. 



10 



competition with the negroes; a.id there will aoon prevail tie 
same antagonism at the South that exist« elsewhere ; an an- 
Lgonism embittered and made intense by the peculiar circum- 
stances that have produced it. 

If there be any who assert that this can never be. because Uie 
necessity for negro labor, to produce the great Southern stap.es, 
wm make the n?gro a necessity thei;e, and secure or him be - 
ter treatment as a hireling than he has received ;^^« ^^l-^J ' 
may be replied, that this is by no mean, certain. ^ ^^/'^^^ f ?" 
has been repeated a million times, that cotton e«" M ^n y be 
produced b/ associated negro labor -and this, to ; 'y tho-e 
who, being planters, might be supposed to know. ^^ ^^f ^^ 
of them ever tried the experiment under circumstance, that 
made the result reliable. The white laborer has always hereto- 
fore had a cioice of toil, and has chosen that which was most 
agreeable to him, and ha. kept away from fields in w^ach slave, 
were fellow- workers. But this cannot be so always, .and it is 
the speaker's firm belief, founded on '^.^'^y P'^^'^'ll'^^^^^^^^^ 
s^rvafion, that when the necessity for it ^'i'^^' ^^f^' '''' i^^ 
and there, but universally, will be grown by win e n^^n- \ha 
the war will hasten the coming ot this tune, to the ^es uct on 
ofthepTsfig-eofnegro labor in this direction, admits ot .ittie 

question. , n j 

In the many addresses wiiich the speaker has been oa..ed 
upon to deliver in the last thirty years, he has always a t u- 
paled the time, when, through the operation o '^^^^^''^;^ 
at the instance of the owners of slaves, prompted by then ovv . 
interest, slavery would cease, and America would /\e in abited 
by an homogeneous population of wnite men; and "« ^''•"b' to 
this theory the more, perhaps, because it was a pleasant one, in- 
voTv r- no painful diii'uptiin of old ties of alfection, which were 
[adepelident of color or l.ce, causing neither loss nor su Tern.g 
leaving the old, when their days of kbor-^vel•e ovei,todiein 
their b°eds. in comfort, and opening to the young ^^^^ ^; j; " ; , 
ous afield of honorable ambition in the land Inmi whence thci 
fathers came. It was a theory that looked to t^^^ j^"^^'"^^' ^^^ . 
were, from amongst us, slowly, but certainly, m the coui^c of 
generations, of the whole negro race. 

But the war, from present appearances, at lea.st. ends the 
theory referred to, ir. many of its aspects, and certainly not to 
the comfort of the negro. 

We cannot close our remarks without a word m rt-ply to 
those who insist that the sad losses of the present contes in 
human life, will of themselves give to negro labor a vnhie that 
will operate to elevate the race, and bring them nearer to so- 
cial equality, if it does not establish them upon that tooting; 
and that this etlect will be enhanced by the fact that the negro 
id now made a soldier, and is uniting with the whites in sustain- 
ing tlie Union s ) prized and so c erished. 



11 

This is but a mirrow view of the niatlcr. There is, already, 
a foreign !nimiii;-ri.itioii. tlie avant courier of a still greater, which 
is filling our numbers, not of the army, but of tlie people, as 
fast as war is depleting- them. The ordinary immigration of 
past years, -wiiich has been felt in maintaining that uniform ra- 
tio of increase which enables us to fix the population of the 
country, at any given period in the future, has been increased 
by the war, and the demand for labor, and the high price of wa- 
ges due to it. That the census of 1870 will show the same ra- 
tio for the preceding decade that has been shown by the census 
of 1860, for that then closed, can scarcely be questioned. 

And this immigration ! Ask the free negro what he thinks 
of it. Wlio hung him to the lamp-jjosts in New York, and 
kindled fires under his body as he swung there, before suffoca- 
tion canie to rescue him from torture ? AVho have ever been 
the bitterest eiiemies of tlie negro ? Who but the foreign emi- 
grant. It is not from this quarter that he can hope for assis- 
tance in realizing his vain and idle dream of social equality — 
nor even the more reasonable, but still impracticable expecta- 
tion of an equal division of industrial occupations. 

But then he has been a soldier ! AVell ; will he be treated 
better on that account, than the learned and refined men, ne- 
groes, who for the last thirty years have illustrated the capaci- 
ty of the race to take an honorable rank in Science. Literature 
and Art, to conduct the afi'airs of government in Liberia with 
ability and reputation? Will tlie soldier who has. survived the 
war, and attained some smaller rank, perhaps, he better receiv- 
ed 'in society, or be recognized as having done more to elevate 
his race, than Crummell, and Blyden, and Roberts, and Euss- 
wurm. and Benson, and McGili? There is no reason why he 
should be. There are many I'easons why he should not; rea- 
sons unnecessary to enumerate, as they suggest themselves na- 
turally. -^They employ us as porters, but do not employ us as 
clerks," said a most intelligent and accomplished negro inXew 
York, when speaking, not many years ago, of some loud-voiced 
friends. It can hardly be hoped that the, war will open the 
doors of the counting houses to the race, after they have so long 
been closed against commercial intelligence and clerical capa- 
city, because their possessors were negroes. 

No ! the war will not change, for the better, one feeling, or 
modify one ])nncip]e, for the negro's advancement in the social 
scale.^ On the contrary, he will find when it is over, that where 
he had before one motive for emigration, he will then have 
two. 

War ! wliy. it softens none of us. Its tendency is the reverse. 
Even now, we are as the spectators at Spanish bull-fights, whoso 
satisfaction is in proportion to the slaughter that distinguishes 
the spectacle. Years since, a steamboat explosion on the wes- 
tern waters, accomi^anicd with the loss of some score of lives 



12 

caused a thrill that pervaded the country, and draped the news- 
papers that iirst announced it in mourning. Now, we consult 
the list oi' killed and wounded to determine the importance of a 
victory, and are disappointed at successes whose misi'ortune it 
is to be bloodless ! We do not acknowledgfi this; we hope it 
is not so. But the fact is not chang-od by our silenoe or our 
hopes. And the negro, in spite of all that may be said to the 
contrary, will find himself loss thought uf, and of less considera- 
tion, witli his whole race free, than when a part of it was in 
bondage. 

He doubts us, we well know, wlien we speak in this way — we 
who have, as colonizationists, recognized his ability, made him 
the governor of our colonies, the professor in our colleges, and 
entrusted him with thousands and tens of thousands of dollars, 
when our oidy security was in his honesty and truth ; we, who, 
while we rejoice in ins freedom, are still tlie friends who pro- 
claim to him his fate if he remains here. 

And whence does he derive the hopes that retain him iu 
America? From the press, the pulpit, and the platform. But 
what do they know of his troubles and difficulties ? Neither the 
orators nor writers, nor their hearers or readers, ever met with 
the negro in the walks wdiere he is striving for bread. What 
eftect has the most eloquent oration ever delivered in his behalf 
upon the hungry whites, who, with every one a vote, insist that 
negro waiters shall no longei- be employed in a fashionable ho- 
tel. What effect has the most vigorous article ever penned 
upon the gang of laborers who, rioting along Ihe wharves, drive 
off tlie negro stevedores ? Was the negro to be seen working • 
with whites in manufactories at alternate benches, associatinr 
with the laboring- class of white men in the streets, there would 
be fa:- more reason t(j hope for Ids social advancement than can 
fairly be derived from all that the press, the platlVirm. or the 
pulpit has ever said in reference to negro wrongs. They have 
caused negroes to be seen at anniversary meetings, scattered 
here and there through the audience — the racinantes in gurgite 
vasto, of the poet — but as to any permanent effect ))roduced by 
them upon those on whom the negro's comfort depends, it has 
been worse than nothing ; for the white man. the p'jor man, has 
felt himself neglected for the negro, and has hated the latter for 
the prominence that has been given to him. 

As C!olonizations. we deal with the negro question as it is 
presented to us. We have prepared a home to which tlie negro 
can escape when he becomes patislied that the evil day is at 
hand. We compel none to go to Liberia. Not every one is lit 
to go, or ought to be received there. That it is a land flowing 
with milk and honey — that the emigrant will not have to en- 
counter diflicidties and submit to privations there — we have 
never pretended to assert. But we have always said, what we 
now repeat, that it is a land where labor will meet a fair re- 
ward in the cultivation of a fertih^ soil, where there i^ a wide 



13 

field for commei-cial enterprise, where ueyroes have eatabliahed, 
and now maintain with honor, a government, republican in 
form, and recognized by the leading nations of the world ; and 
where it is our assured belief tliat an emigration, voluntary and 
self-paying — just such an emigration as brings the European to 
our shores — will, in the inevitable course of human events, 
build up a great nation, vindicating, in its own prosperity, and 
iii the christianizing of Africa, the ways of God towards man. 

Such have been the views of Colonizationists lieretofore. Con- 
fessedly incompetent, vvith any means at their ciunmand, to 
transport the free people of color, or any considerable portion 
of them to Africa, even before the war, intinitely absurd would 
be the idea that, when all shall be free, of the negro race, they 
would be able to do so. But, blessed by Him who liveth and 
reigneth, their feeble strength and limited means have founded 
Liberia, and have made it, and will be able to continue to make 
it sufficiently attractive, to cause, when combined with the pres- 
sure of increasing population here, the exodus, in time, of the 
whole negro race from amongst us. 

We arc weak, very weak ; we, the friends of Colonization ! 
But mighty agencies (this very war not the least of them) arc 
at work to vindicate the wisdom of the founders of our Society. 
Time and circumstances are our great auxiliaries ; and upon 
these we depend. Nor do we doubt that the day will come, 
when, on the coast of Africa, the thanks of grateful millionrt 
will be rendered to even the humblest of those who have 
wrought in the great cause of African Culonization. 



Address of Rev. P. D. Gurley, D. D. 

Mr. President : When an honorable member of the Board of 
Directors of the American Colonization Society called upon me 
a few days ago, to ask the use of the New York Avenue 
Church for your anniversary exercises, he, at the srrae time, re- 
quested that on this occasion I should say a few words in favor 
of the cause. I promised to do so : not to make a speech, but 
briefly to add my testimony to that of other speakers on behalf 
of African Colonization. I stand here to redeem that promise ; 
and for the sake of brevity and precision, I have reduced what 
I wish to say to writing: 

Tiiough the Colonization Society is merely a voluntary asso- 
ciation, and though it has had to labor with many difficulties 
growing out of misapprehension and.prejudice, still it can boast 
of achievements which are enough to silence its enemies and 
fill the hearts of its friends and supporters with gratitude atid 
joy. What has it done? 

1; In the first place, it has opened an asylum i'or the free 
people of color, to which they may go and enjoy all the rights 
and immunities of freemen indeed. There stands Liberia — the 



14 

fruit of Colonization — on the Wc\st^rn coast of Africa, the 
only bright spot of any considerable magnitude, save one, 
on the whole of that dark, dark continent. There is a 
republican government modeled after our own. There are 
schools, and churches, and temperance societies, and news- 
papers, and agriculture, and the mechanical arts, and a legiti- 
mate commerce. There are legislative assemblies, and whole- 
some laws, and courts and officers of justice, and all the ele- 
ments of an advanced civilization — all the agencies that usually 
accompany and promote true national growth and prosperity. 
There are several thousand persons, the most of whom were 
once in bondage, removed from this country, and organized 
into thriving communities. They are, for the most part, moral 
and religious, ferhaps a greater proportion of them are mem- 
bers of some Christian church than in any other community of 
equal dimensions in the world. So much has been done ; and 
if this were all, it would be enough to vindicate the cause of 
African Colonization, and commend it to the hearty approba- 
tion of all benevolent men. Yes, wliile the enemies of this 
scheme have been cavilling, and gravely doubting the possi- 
bility of establishing one colon,y, behold a constellation of colo- 
nies' has arisen, star by star, and shed its light along the dreary 
coast, reminding us of the words of the prophet, and renewing^ 
their fulfilment : — "The people which sat in darkness saw great 
light ; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of deatli 
light is sprung up. " There, I repeat it,has been opened a 
blessed asylum ior tlie I'ree colored people of this country. 
Mere they He under political and social disadvantages ; there 
they are organized into an independent ampire of their own. 
They are stimulated to improvement by everything around 
them ; they are inspired by all laudable motives of ambition, 
and eflectually aroused to that energy, determination and hope, 
which are indispensable to their advancement, and which we 
are persuaded they will never put forth while they remain in 
tills country. The fact that we can now take our colored breth- 
ren by the hand, and encourage their hearts and hopes witli 
the assurance that there is one spot in the world where they 
can become a great, and powerful, and independent nation, 
all this we owe to Colonization. 

2. Secondly : Colonization has done more for the suppres.s- 
ion of the slave trade than all the united navies of the world, 
The history of all the etl'orts wliich have been made by armed 
forces to arrest the progress of this inhuman traffic, is full of 
defeat and discouragement. It is now we think generally ad- 
mitted that the slave trade can never be arrested and abolished 
by the eflbrts of men-of-war, however earnest, and strong, and 
vigilant they may be ; and that the only hope of eflectually 
doing this great work is by planting colonies along the coast, 
operating upon the minds of the natives themselves, inducing 
them to abandon their trade in men, with the view of cnga- 



J5 

ging ID lawful commerce, aud thns effectually cutting off the 
supply of slaves. Now, this is just what our colonies in Libe- 
ria have done all along the coast, wherever their influence ex- 
tends. Yes, it is a fact that Liberia has suppressed the slave 
trade for hundreds of miles (700) along the seaboard ; and 
whereas that whole region was little less than a storehouse and 
an outlet for slaves, before it was occupied by Christian colo- 
nies, it may be fairly estimated that, through their instrument- 
ality, at least twenty thousand Africans are kept back from 
slavery every year. This is no small achievement, and, it 
seems to me, it should endear the cause of African Coloniza- 
tion to every philanthropic heart. 

3. Again , As a means of carrying the blessings of Christian- 
ity to the 150.000,000 of heatlien on the continent of Africa, 
Colonization seems to be our best and only hope. What has 
ever been done for Africa apart from Colonization? Very little 
indeed. The missionaries have either died in a short time, or 
been driven from the country by the severity of the climate, or 
else they have fallen an early sacrifice to the barbarity of its 
inhabitants. The climate is fatal to the white man. He cannot 
endure it. And if the enterprise of kindling the lights of civili- 
nation and Christianity in every part of that dark continent is 
to depend upon him, it must fail. If Africa is ever to be re- 
deemed, it must be through the instrumentality of colored men. 
This seems to be a settled question. But how are even colored 
men to operate in that country against the combined influence- 
of war, plunder, cannibalism, and the slave-trade ? Can they 
accomplish much single-handed and alone? Certainly not. If 
they would do good in Africa, they must go together, and in 
(guch numbers as to form an organization strong enough for the 
purposes of self-defence. Rely upon it, all past experience 
proves that colonies of colored people a;e the only means where- 
b}'^ the blessings of the Christian religion can be carried to the 
benighted millions of Africa. By a close and critical historicoJ 
examination, made within the last twenty years, it has been 
demonstrated that Roman Catholic missions for three centuries, 
and Protestant missions for one century past, disconnected with 
c Ivilized colonies on the coast, have been an utter failure. This 
examination has also shown that colonization has had the most 
marked and marvellous influence in protecting and sustaining 
Christian missions. Indeed, it has been their great safeguard 
and defence, and is now regarded by those who have carefully 
attended to the subject, as the only medium through which they 
can extend their redeeming power over the continent, and 
iisher in the day when " princes shall come out of Egypt, and 
Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto God." 

We bless God, then, for Liberia ; for what it has done and 
promises to do for the free man of cokr ; for what it has done 
and promises to do for the suspression of the slave trade ; for 
what it has done and promisee to do for Christian missions^ 



16 

and, throug'h them, for the complete redemption of Africa. Its 
various benevolent bearings, and what it has actually accom- 
plished for ttie cause of God and humanity, give it a strong and 
unquestionable claim upon our sympathy and assistance, our 
confidence and prayers; and unless 1 greatly mistake the signs 
of the times, as connected with current and coming events in 
our own beloved and bleeding country, they point to a day near 
at hand when Liberia and African (colonization will assume an 
importance in the estimation of the x\m rican people such as 
they never had before; and when thousands now indilferent to 
their claims, or disposed to call them in question, will confess 
their mistake, and admire, as we (io, the wisdom that devised 
so blessed a scheme ibr the deliverance of a sulTering people 
and a suffering continent frcnn the pressure of darkness and 
sorrow. 

I will only- add in concliisi'^n, ihat, in my humble judgment, 
the success tliat has attended the Colonization enterprise, con- 
sidering the feebleness of its means, and the scantiness of its 
resources, is one of the most extraordinary events in the history 
of the world. The smile ot heaven has evidently rested upon it 
from the beginning, and rests upon it still. I have no doubt of 
its complete success. 1 believe the colonies planted on the 
western coast of Africa are but the opening of a house of re- 
fuge to which thousands and tens of thousands of the colored 
people of this land and of other lands will yet be seen fleeing 
every year with gratitude and gladness, hailing it as their 
surest retreat and their most inviting home. I believe that the 
little State of Liberia is but the germ of a great and glorious 
Republic, which will carry light and liberty, and blessing to 
benighted and down-trodden millions, over whom it will extend 
its peaceful sway. Nay more: 1 believe African Colonization 
is to be very conspicuous among the distinguishing events of 
the nineteenth century, and that wheri the future historian shall 
write tlic history of the age in which we live, among the bright- 
est pages in all the record will be that which chronicles the 
achievements of that blessed, blessed enterprise we arc this 
evening endeavoring to promote. 

I will oidy add, Mr. Prsidcnt, that when the slavery question 
shall have been solved, and solved it may be, in blood, the ne- 
gro question will remain; and when an anxious and an agitated 
people shall seek the solution of that question, they will iind it 
— where ? In the tcork of this blessed Society. The free and 
prosj erous Republic of Liberia will then be iiailed with grati- 
tude atul gladness as the true solution of the diilicult and peril- 
ous problem, and thenceforth tlie memory of the men who 
founded that Republic and of the friends who fostered it in its 
days of ilarkncss and trial, will be precious, very precious. The 
friends of Clod and liinTianity everywhere will give thanks for 
their work of faith arul labor of love, and coming gcneraiions 
of every clime and co!..>r will arise and call them blessed. ^^ 

54 W 

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